COX Used Vehicle Report Surprise, Charging Charges Forward, Technology & Empathy From Pepsi

SPEAKERS

Kyle Mountsier, Paul Daly

Paul Daly  00:00

You yo Thursdays coming in hot that's right get that big camera set up Kayo it was like already started we got a vehicle report charging things and the hard ID they stopped the aviator. So

Kyle Mountsier  00:49

if you just listen to the audio podcast every once in a while Paul and I will just get a little bit sideways on the video podcast and I you know every once in a while, like to throw on some shades just for the first couple of minutes I got some random aviators that we got from I don't know

Paul Daly  01:04

the ones from the box from the casino hotel tour yesterday,

Kyle Mountsier  01:07

you know, hotel that we were at that a soda con is coming to in Baltimore in September. So save the date.

Paul Daly  01:14

Yes, definitely save the date. Last week in September, we're going to be dropping a bunch more content and information about that soon. Cars miles, changes in great poker glasses. I feel like when people are wearing glasses when they're playing poker, I feel I feel like that's like cheating.

Kyle Mountsier  01:31

Right? I mean, I don't know, I don't I think like the rest of my face would probably give away anything that I'm thinking anyway. So you know,

Paul Daly  01:39

students lack of confidence to me, they go, maybe that's one I don't know, those guys are way smarter than I. And some things, some things. Not a lot of life choices sometimes now not as much. But But anyway. Anyway, we're counting down what are we seven days from nada? Six days? 777?

Kyle Mountsier  01:57

I guess you'd like it's actually smart. Who's you know what date the account the day you're on or not? So we're gonna call it seven. Here it is. So do Yeah, but

Paul Daly  02:07

we'll be there. When you and I are flying in early in the morning on Wednesday, we have a bunch of stuff planned. Before we even get to we were going through the agenda for the Sodor group, because we're rolling heavy, like 15 people you're gonna see

Kyle Mountsier  02:16

like, it'll just take us an hour, an hour, and we were halfway through,

Paul Daly  02:21

we didn't even get to Wednesday night when really nothing is happening yet, after 30 minutes, and we're like this is going to be a thing. So probably, you know, the best description I can can say for what it's going to look like when the soda team is moving around is marauding, we're going to be Mirotic through that. And so if you see us, please say hi, if you're a dealer, we'd love to talk to you. If you just see us, we're probably gonna throw a microphone in your face and see what you think about the show about what's going on about what's going on in your home and your store. Which is really what we're curious about. And I think everybody else is curious about too. So we're doing that we have a webinar today. Our second in our webinar series with active engaged, we're gonna be getting into a little Chet GPT and talking about the human versus AI interaction and how understanding the principles behind that can actually help you give your customers what you want, what they want, through the sales process. So that's going to be a lot of fun. So register for that. Do we have a domain URL somewhere on our site,

Kyle Mountsier  03:21

posted on LinkedIn early this morning, so you can go find it right here on

Paul Daly  03:25

LinkedIn. So if you're not following us on LinkedIn, just follow us. So do and you'll be happy you did not just for webinar links, because we put a lot into the LinkedIn page. And it's a lot of fun. All right, let's talk about some news. Yesterday, Cox used vehicle report surprise more than a few folks in the industry is wholesale prices increased point and half 1.5%. From from December, and also the day supply of retail and wholesale. Decreased right. Went down. What are the points decreased?

Kyle Mountsier  03:54

Yep. Yeah, it went down. What seven days? Day supply? Actually, what's crazy is literally I think it was maybe a week, week and a half ago, we were talking about how the day supply was up to 55 or 58, depending on what source you look at. It goes right now we're like, what mid January already down day supply. Looks like dependent? You know, I think there's a lot of factors that play into that. But one of the really interesting facts is University of Michigan puts out their consumer sentiment index and consumer sentiment has not fallen it has actually risen. Get this 8% like we normally see fluctuations of one to 3% when they when they adjust consumer sentiment indexes, but an 8% rise in consumer sentiment, which means buyers are ready again buyers are in the market. You see like yesterday was the first time that every single stock stock exchange saw a dip this year so and that was only on some, like Job reports and new business reports. But oh Overall, the start of the year has been really aggressive from a buying and consumer perspective. And I think this data just just plays into that, you know, four of the eight major segments of vehicle segments saw price increases compared to December. So gains anywhere from point seven to 2.8%. Making the 20, the year over year prices stay about the same. So we saw that massive increase in 2020, to the drop off in q4, and then we're starting to see that rise back up into into 2020, early 2022 ranges. It's really interesting to see that even with more blood inventory coming on the new car side,

Paul Daly  05:40

it's almost like you have to give up on predicting.

Kyle Mountsier  05:43

You absolutely do.

Paul Daly  05:45

Feels like that complete, it's like, I don't even know. Right, because maybe a few people. You know, our friend John Ellis kind of predicted some of these things and you know, he'll he'll say people thought he was crazy. Right? Right. And but a lot of other really smart people didn't predict that, like you don't know what is going to happen, which really just brings things back to, for my in my mind. Your operational excellence never goes out of style, like anytime energy effort, dollars you spend on operational excellence, whether that's training your people, whether that's retaining your people, whether that is technology, implementation, process implementation, those things are just it doesn't matter what the market or the sentiment does, they are totally, totally set aside for that. So I mean, that's kind of been a little bit of a call from people over the last year, but I still think that's going to be 2020 threes like winning game plan.

Kyle Mountsier  06:35

Yep. Well, and I, you know, one of our good friends, Jason rice, he always encourages this, this two week planning method, looking back at the prior two weeks, not at the prior month, or rolling 45. Noticing that, like the market changes, especially right now are that quick. So if you're making end of month, January decisions based on December inputs and outputs, you're you're doing it wrong, because the beginning of January is the input and output that you need to be making second half and February decisions on inventory sales strategy acquisition pricing strategy, right now.

Paul Daly  07:09

Speaking things that are happening right now it's kind of like that there's been a last couple of days some real action in evey charging infrastructure, forward energy as several companies have seen big moves over the last several days, DC fast charger Mekhi, tritium announced its single largest order ever have over 1000 Level Three chargers formed from the petroleum company, BP, British Petroleum. This is the second order from them, their first order was actually almost 1000. And they're gonna be placing these chargers across the US, Europe and Australia. So that's 1000s of chargers being ordered, fast chargers put in and you see a traditional petroleum company that you know, makes its money from, you know, filling stations. They're saying like, Hey, we're filling up whether it's gas or electric, we want to be the stop. Also. Not to be outdone, shell another filling station announced yesterday, its acquisition of Evie charging firm volta for $169 million. Now they can start small chargers with big screens on them, which is just the way it should be like if you're going to have someone sitting there for 20 minutes, well, you better serve them up something good. So these these charges have huge screens, and they're mainly placed in public locations, like grocery stores and office parks, some theme parks, which seems like a better place for a level nurture.

Kyle Mountsier  08:30

You know what's interesting. And I hadn't thought about this before until this is kind of coming out this week. But companies like BP and Shell and Exxon and all these other companies that that like own these franchised fueling stations are in a massive, like real estate game, right? Because you think of the real estate they have to acquire it's typically corner real estate, you know, exactly. Heavy traffic, all that type of stuff. They actually have the ability to reduce overall real estate expenses. If they continue in the fueling nature in the charging game, because they understand that infrastructure, the communication pattern, the marketing, the customers, the loyalty rewards, all that type of stuff. If they can transition their consumer base into an E V structure, they actually get to take the opportunity of real estate from other other brick and mortar businesses, like their real estate leased instead of owned or purchased or having to build on that. And construction costs are definitely cheaper because you're not dropping oil and ground. It's really like I hadn't thought about it. If these companies are smart and don't go Blockbuster and stay with the times. They actually have a massive opportunity for revenue within this

Paul Daly  09:48

model works.

Kyle Mountsier  09:49

Do they own the real estate? Like I don't I don't know. I don't know if the franchisee or you know, I think there are some that are like owned and then there's some franchise locations.

Paul Daly  09:59

It's huge right? fact that now we can be where the customers at and like, I don't know why you would put a charging station in that doesn't have a screen you just think of the Perpetual Revenue that you're gonna get from doing ad placements around there but either way volta you know, they were they were literally in a place the heavy high overhead business right you have to spend all the money to build the Chargers or buy the chargers and then place them. So you know, they were struggling with expansion because the cash shell comes in, buys the company and says we'll provide you all the cash you need. Really good partnership again, just pushing that Evie infrastructure forward. Meanwhile, we covered this in this morning's email, you don't get it so they're not calm. Seattle is struggling with some Evie charger theft. How do you still need the charger? You don't you actually just steal the copper in the cables. of one of their 15 station networks have been hit since March some of them twice the ROI it cost about $3,000 to repair them once they're they're vandalized, but really the copper you get out of them might be worth like 100 bucks, like so. It's I don't know what the solution is there. Just put $100 bill on it be like, please just take the 100 Please take 100 downs like extortion. But yeah, like new new opportunities come with new problems. We cover that a little bit more in our daily email. I'm trying to think of a good segue to this last one. Because I love this last story so much. It's actually my favorite story of all the ones that are in the email today. But speaking of my favorite story, he's going to use that because it doesn't do the whole thing. So in a tight labor market where employee retention is more important than ever Pepsi Co North America is finding great success, leveraging technology and empathy. There you go. That's

Kyle Mountsier  11:40

like leveraging Kyle. And Paul, right.

Paul Daly  11:46

Is that our is that our like dual band aid, you always taken out? Yo I'm empathy. Public Service Announcement, right. But they're leveraging technology and empathy to improve the lives of their workers. And it is working. So basically what they're doing is they said, look, the labor markets tight, we need to make sure that people have a better place to work that they feel better about what they do that they feel like it's not as strained. So they're leveraging technology for different scanning technologies. So instead of keying things in, we're scanning things making just the process smoother. Because as it turns out, friction in your technology process, even for your own people wears them out. Yep. All right. It's what they're doing that they're also like, adding like, a break room, like a nice break room, go figure that that's something that people actually want. They're adding a scheduling technology in the sense of a scheduling system, allowing people to schedule themselves a little bit, right. And technology is helping that. So there's not that like, Hey, let me go to my manager and ask for this and have them have that look on their face, like they're upset them take, right, they got rid of all of that. And they're allowing people to even like work, you know, three or four day weeks, as long as they get their hours. And here's a great quote from Steven Williams, the CEO of Pepsi, North America, he said, I used to think of want to keep my employees safe, go to work and come home, like they came in, right. So like, my job is to like, make sure they don't get hurt while they're here. And they go home with all their digits. Instead, that's not enough anymore, you have to do that and be concerned with their overall well being people are different today than they were three years ago. I don't agree with that last part, I think they're the same as they were three years ago, I just think that more companies are leaning in to serve the actual needs that the people have.

Kyle Mountsier  13:29

Yeah, I mean, what I think is different is that they've is that as a macro look, is we have created a much more anxious, much more fearful, much more stressed out culture, and, and that leaning into removing the stressors of everyday work environment frees people up to be encouraged, think better be refreshed throughout their day. So that's, um, that might be where he's leaning into that. And, I mean, this is challenging for me, like we have, we have employees in a soda, we have people that we care for. And so it's challenging for me like what what can we, as a company prove to the rest of the auto industry that when you remove these stressors and leverage technology and empathy to ensure that your employees are cared for? Well, and I think that that is that's relevant for any business owner to think about on a daily basis, like what blockades what barriers are to our in our in my people's days, to giving them efficiency, care, stress, free work environment, all that type of stuff.

Paul Daly  14:30

So you know, another one of the changes that just hitting me is that it's become okay to bring your whole self to work. That's true. Yeah, right. And in the back in the day, like the light like when you go to work, leave it at home, right? You leave your personal stuff at home. Now let's be you know, people have realized that you get the best people and the best experience and the best your customers get the best experience when your people are allowed to bring them hold their whole selves to work, and that you work to cultivate their whole self, which I think is a complete benefit. I'm, I am not a fan of that business personal line. I mean, it does need to exist somewhere. But the more it can just be people relating with doing something great with other people, the better off stop do what wrong button that's the one stop and stop full stop. Don't let that be the last thing you think about on your way out today. Everybody in your store in your business bring their whole self How can you serve the whole person? We're gonna do our best to do that here to see you tomorrow.

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